Monthly Meeting

Our meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month (unless otherwise specified) at the Carlsbad Woman's Club, 3320 Monroe St. Carlsbad, CA 92008. This is on Monroe St. just south of Carlsbad Village Drive. We feature regular culture classes to learn about growing orchids first hand, as well as our monthly special guest speakers, who cover just about every imagined topic on orchid culture, breeding, hybridizing, judging, conservation, travel and more.

Brandon TamThis month, our guest speaker is Brandon Tam, Orchid Collection Specialist at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA. The Huntington has one of the largest orchid collections in the United States with 16,000 plants. Brandon will present an overview of the collection and discuss the Huntington’s involvement in the orchid world. Then, he will present his 10 favorite orchids in the collection including their origins and growing culture.

Brandon has been with the Huntington for over 8 years. He began volunteering at the institution at the age of 14. There were always plenty of opportunities to quench his thirst for plant knowledge, from tending plants in the Conservatory to database entry of pressed specimens in the Herbarium.

Brandon credits his grandmother for inspiring him to further his studies within the botanical world and pursue a career within that field. She bought him his first orchid at age 7, a white flowering cymbidium. She would take him to their local nursery and let him pick out a plant on every visit. Over time, his orchid collection grew, and his knowledge of orchids grew also. Read more »

Alek ZaslawskiOur gust speaker this month is Alek Zaslawski of AWZ Orchids in Brazil. The topic of his presentation is the species Cattleya violacea and he will show plants in their natural habitat as well as flowers with different color forms. His talk will also include many cultivation tips.

Alek was born and raised in the state of Espirito Santo, in Southeastern Brazil. His father, Wladyslaw, grew orchids as a hobby, and Alek was always surrounded by orchids at his parents’ home. His father enjoyed taking trips to see orchids in the wild and would take Alek with him.

Alek became a mechanical engineer and never expected to work with orchids, however, orchids would always catch his attention. He admired their beauty and the way they grew in nature. When his father retired, Alek quit his job to start an orchid business with him and in 1994 they opened AWZ Orchids.

Alek and his father were aware that orchids were quickly disappearing from the wild and their original idea was to reproduce plants in their nursery to help reduce the pressure on native populations. They also noticed that most of the plants that had been collected in the past had simply disappeared from collections. Typically, they had been killed or sold to foreign growers. Over the years, AWZ has tried to bring back some of the best varieties found within many species, especially those belonging to the Cattleya alliance. Read more »

David BrownThis month we welcome David Brown as our guest speaker. David will present on "A Year at the San Diego Zoo Orchid Greenhouse" in which he will highlight those plants that typically flower in each month.

The greenhouse at the San Diego Zoo is open to the public every third Friday of the month as part of the zoo's "Orchid Odyssey". David first attended that event in 1999, and became fascinated with the orchids in the zoo’s collection. "There was so much diversity in shape, size, color and form." he remembers. David came to see the greenhouse as one of the hidden jewel of the zoo and he returned every month after that. Eventually, he met Janette Gerrity, who is in charge of the orchid collection at the zoo. Janette began to mentor him in his new orchid obsession and David also came to know the volunteers who worked there and who shared their information and knowledge with him. After a few years, he knew enough about the orchid collection to become a volunteer himself. Upon a suggestion by other volunteers, he began to attend the meetings of the San Diego County Orchid Society and soon became an active member, later serving as a member of the board and, eventually, as President.

The orchid collection at the Zoo consists of about 3000 plants in 300 genera and 800 species. David especially favors the large species collection: "As pretty and intriguing as hybrids are, there is just something about species," he said. During his talk, he will share some of the zoo’s "impressive plants."

We welcome Francisco Miranda as our guest speaker this month. Francisco’s presentation will focus on cattleya species and their habitats and his talk is titled "The genus Cattleya in Brazil". Cattleya species can be found throughout Brazil and Francisco will show examples from most of the major regions where they occur.

Francisco was born in Rio de Janeiro and he has been growing orchids since 1979, the same year he received his degree in Biology. He began his taxonomic studies of the orchid family in 1981. In 1985, he completed a Master’s Degree and his thesis “Section Cattleyodes of the genus Laelia”.

Francisco has made frequent field trips to study the habitats of Brazilian orchids, resulting in many new described species. He has authored two books and several scientific papers. In 1996, he served as the Program Chairman for the 15th World Orchid Conference in Rio de Janiero. Read more »

We welcome back Fred Clarke as our guest speaker this month. Fred will discuss the fundamentals of growing orchids and explore some advanced techniques. Orchid plant culture will be explained and techniques on how to maximize growth and flowering will be reviewed. Fred says If you do 80% of what you’re supposed to do correctly, you will be a good grower.

Fred is a long time, generous supporter of the Palomar Orchid Society and one of our most favorite speakers. Fred Clarke has been growing orchids for 35 years and has been hybridizing for 32 of those years. With over 28 years as a professional grower and manager in the horticultural industry, Fred applies these skills at his orchid nursery, Sunset Valley Orchids, located in Vista, California, just north of San Diego. His nursery’s website has considerable information, plants for sale and many beautiful pics of his award winning orchids.

He is a passionate orchid grower whose curiosity in orchids is broad and varied. Although developing Cattleya hybrids has been his sustaining interest, he is also actively creating new Bulbophylum and Paphiopedilum hybrids. Read more »

Peter Lin’s presentation "12 Months of Orchids" is a fast-paced PowerPoint presentation will show you how to build an orchid collection to have blooming plants for each month of the year.

Peter started growing orchids over 30 years ago, but stopped to focus on school and starting a career. It wasn’t until 11 years ago that the orchid “bug” came back, and he is now heavily involved again. He is an accredited judge with the American Orchid Society and a hybridizer of mini-Cattleyas. He enjoys interacting with other orchid enthusiasts and can often be found at various orchid shows and societies around the country.

Due to limited growing space, Peter specializes in miniature orchids, both species and hybrids, and has received numerous AOS awards. His other interests in orchids include Dendrobiums, and Neofenetias. He maintains a collection of a thousand or more orchids at his home in Southern California in three small greenhouses, as well as in an offsite greenhouse.

Peter has hundreds of photos of his orchids that he maintains on Flickr. Peter also maintains a personal web site including a small catalog of orchids available for purchase at www.diamondorchids.com